STOCKWATCH - Hong Kong's BEA down in line with mkt; reports on chairman weigh

STOCKWATCH - Hong Kong's BEA down in line with mkt; reports on chairman weigh

	Published : Thu, 10 May 2007 09:11 By : Agencies Print this Story

HONG KONG (XFN-ASIA) - Bank of East Asia Ltd (BEA) was lower in line with the broader market after reports that its chairman David Li has been linked to an alleged insider trading probe surrounding a 5 bln usd bid for Dow Jones & Co, dealers said.

Li, who also serves as a director on the Dow Jones board, is expected to be questioned by US regulators in connection with an insider trading probe into a Hong Kong couple who made large purchases of Dow Jones shares, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Hong Kong couple is said to have bought the Dow Jones shares just before the stock jumped on news that tycoon Rupert Murdoch's News Corp had launched a takeover bid for the company.

In another report, Hong Kong's Standard newspaper said that Dow Jones has launched an internal probe into whether Li leaked confidential information to a friend, Hong Kong businessman Michael Leung.

Leung is the father of Charlotte Ka On Wong, one of the persons said to be under the scrutiny of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Li has denied giving information to anyone.

'I did not disclose to anyone, not even my wife, any information about Dow Jones,' Li told the Wall Street Journal.

At 3.10 pm, BEA was down 0.90 hkd or 1.89 pct at 46.65, off a low of 46.4, while the Hang Seng Index was down 92.27 points or 0.44 pct at 20,752.51.

An analyst in Hong Kong said that while reports on the SEC probe may be weighing on investors' minds, the drop in BEA's share price may not necessarily be due to those concerns.

'Li's alleged link to this incident might have had some psychological impact on some investors,' said Paul Lee, senior analyst at Tai Fook Securities.

'But his alleged link is merely suspicion and there is no evidence of any wrongdoing. He sits in the board of directors of many companies and I don't think any difficulties that he encounters in any of them will have any fundamental impact on BEA,' Lee said.

'I think the drop in BEA's share price today is merely in line with the market's fall.'

(1 usd = 7.8 hkd)

jun.concepcion@xfn.com